A Forum for Vigorous Debate, Cornerstone of Democracy

***********************************************************************************************************************************A FORUM FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND VIGOROUS DEBATE, CORNERSTONES OF DEMOCRACY[For the journal(guidelines, focus, etc.), go to www.theamericandissident.org].Encouraged censorship and self-censorship seem to have become popular in America today. Those who censor others, not just self, tend to favor the term "moderate," as opposed to "censor" and "moderation" to "censorship." But that doesn't change what they do. They still act as Little Caesars or Big Brother protectors of the thin-skinned. Democracy, however, demands a tough populace, not so easily offended. On this blog, and to buck the trend of censorship, banning, and ostracizing, comments are NEVER "moderated." Rarely (almost NEVER) do the targets of these blog entries respond in an effort to defend themselves with cogent counter-argumentation. This blog is testimony to how little academics, poets, critics, newspaper editors, cartoonists, political hacks, cultural council apparatchiks, librarians et al appreciate VIGOROUS DEBATE, cornerstone of democracy. Clearly, far too many of them could likely prosper just fine in places like communist China and Cuba or Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Russia.

Saturday, September 27, 2014

U.S. Department of Arts and Culture

Open Letter
to the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture*

The problem with state-sponsored, or
pseudo-state sponsored, culture is ALWAYS Soviet in nature. The problem
with Cultural Apparatchik Agents is always their inability to think out of that
box… their status as CAAs depends on it! They tend to be overly gregarious
and lacking in individual spirit and courage to buck state-approved art &
culture, now PC-restricted in nature. Will your organization seek
to counter the official US Department of Arts & Culture, the National
Endowment for the Arts, which would never support my art and writing, or just seek
to milk money out of it? You note that your newly appointed 17 CAAs will
undergo two months of training. How I’d love to receive a report on what
precisely that training will consist of. Will it include sensitivity
training with regards the importance of DIVERSITY, not of superficial color and
ethnicity, but rather of viewpoints? Will it include training to help
CAAs build sufficient spine so they might actually encourage, rather than
outright reject, criticism of the organization and the CAAs themselves?
Will the CAA closest to me, David Kimball (Marlborough, MA), be trained to
fight for freedom of speech and expression and otherwise help artists like me
who have been ostracized due to candid criticism of organizations in his area,
including PEN New England, Massachusetts Poetry Festival, Massachusetts
Cultural Council, and Boston National Poetry Month? You note: “You don't have to be a legal citizen of the
United States to be a Citizen Artist with the USDAC! You don't have to be an
artist either! Just someone committed to helping cultivate the empathy and
imagination we need to create the world we wish to inhabit...”Yet
that world is likely not the one that I and other staunch individual
free-thinking artist and writer “enemies of the people” would wish to
inhabit! Recall how the Soviets labeled those who questioned and
challenged the regime and state culture as “enemies of the people.”
Recall how artists and writers who did that were sent to gulag concentration
camps! My fear is that the world you wish to create would be an
ideologically-driven, brave-new-world of censorship, groupthink, obligatory
positivism, and absence of real freedom of speech and expression. Sadly
that world already seems to be taking shape. Your goal of “creative
social change” is perhaps a frightening one, reminiscent of Cuba’s “creative
social change” and Tim Wise’s racist White Privilege movement. No thanks,
methinks! Finally, the smiley-face that your missive seems to have stamped upon
your organization resounds a bit childish, you know, like the “Hope and Change”
mantra that resulted in more of the same.Moreover, why are you apparently unaware that VIGOURGOUS DEBATE, like I’ve
tried in vain to instigate with you, is in fact a cornerstone of democracy,
though not a cornerstone of authoritarian Soviet-like regimes?

…………………………………………….

*This organization is not part of
the US government, despite its name. However, it is as unresponsive (unaccountable) as any other organization of the US government, so it might as well be part of it...

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Trigger Warning: This Blog May Contain Highly Offensive Content for Comfortably Entrenched Academics, Poets of the Status Quo, Politically-Correct Indoctrinees, and Gatekeepers of All Shades, Colors, Ages, and Sexual Orientations.

VERITAS NUMQUAM PERIT

Locate what you may believe to be errors in these blog entries, and I will rectify them, if in fact errors, and readily admit wrong for each and every one of them. To dismiss the writing and cartoon sketches, however, with ad hominem and quips simply serves to deflect attention from their truths. When you choose to dismiss someone as "angry" and "bitter," one must assume you are simply projecting your own anger and bitterness. Try instead logical point-by-point counter-argumentation.